Enterprises and individuals are increasingly demanding more complex printing solutions. That is, printing features that use to require a separate professional service are now being demanded by consumers.
In large part, the print industry's responses to these demands have been to provide print media having multiple characteristics. For instance, varied dimensions of media and various types of adhesive materials affixed to the media have been provided. Additionally, the media can be thermally coated to permit thermal imaging on one or both sides of thereof. So, the media types can include their own individual characteristics and features.
Media that includes adhesive materials typically has to be processed by a special type of adhesively-sensitive printer, whereas media requiring dual-sided imaging requires another special type of printer. As a result, enterprises carry multiple types of printers, each printer type for a specific printing need of the enterprises.
This situation is costly for an enterprise and causes support issues because when one type of printer breaks down or fails, the failed printer cannot be swapped out with another type of printer that remains operational.
In addition, some types of printers are rarely if ever used within an enterprise; so, there are operational inefficiencies within the enterprise. Furthermore, there is additional environmental waste by carrying multiple types of printers because each printer type requires its own independent electrical power source, each individual printer has its own byproducts, and each individual printer has to be disposed of when its useful life comes to an end.
Thus, it can be seen that improved printers that can image multiple types of media are desirable.